University of Virginia Library

Hoover Warns Students:
Beware Of Subversives!

By John Edgar Hoover

— Ed.

An open letter to college
students:

As a 1970 college student, you
belong to the best educated, most
sophisticated, most poised
generation in our history.

Outspoken

The vast majority of you, I am
convinced, sincerely love America
and want to make it a better
country.

You do have ideas of your own
- and that's good. You see things
wrong in our society which we
adults perhaps have minimized or
overlooked. You are outspoken and
frank and hate hypocrisy. That is
good too.

Legitimate Opinion

There's nothing wrong with
student dissent or student demands
for changes in society or the display
of student unhappiness over aspects
of our national policy. Student
opinion is a legitimate aspect of
public opinion in our society.

But there is real ground for
concern about the extremism which
led to violence, lawlessness, and
disrespect for the rights of others
on many college campuses during
the past year.

Irrational Extremists

The extremists are a small
minority of students and faculty
members who have lost faith in
America. They ridicule the flag,
poke fun at American institutions,
seek to destroy our society. They
are not interested in genuine
reform. They take advantage of the
tensions, strife, and often legitimate
frustrations of students to promote
campus chaos. They have no
rational, intelligent plan of the
future either for the university or
the Nation.

Trotskyist Committee

The extremists are of wide
variety; adherents of the Students
for a Democratic Society (SDS),
including the Weathermen;
members of the Young Socialist
Alliance (YSA), the Trotskyist
youth group; the Communist
Party's Young Workers Liberation
League (YWLL). Or they may be
associated with the Student
Mobilization Committee to End the
War in Vietnam (SMC), a
Trotskyist-dominated antiwar
group.